Single-chip battery management family
Atmel Corporation has announced a family of single-chip Li-ion battery management devices.Combining Atmel’s high voltage manufacturing process and AVR microcontrollers’ technology, the new family gives an extremely high analog accuracy at very low power consumption, while ensuring that portable handheld applications have all the necessary safety functions.
Li-ion batteries are very popular in applications like mobile phones, media players, digital still cameras, PDAs or notebooks to name a few. While they offer high energy density, low weight and volume, they require careful monitoring and charging control to ensure safety and optimum life time.
Safety is a major criterion for battery usage and recent industry problems – generating huge recalls from manufacturers – illustrates the importance of safe and accurate control functions.
This also includes the need for authentication to ensure the user will use a certified battery and not a copy that can potentially be unsafe.
Atmel has been working with key battery manufacturers to develop optimised solutions and is now offering a full range of microcontrollers dedicated to Li-ion battery management supporting 1 to 4 cells. This product family offers a unique set of features to optimize performance and safety.
By giving extremely accurate voltage measurements it is possible to control the charge and discharge cut-off voltages more accurately, thus making it possible to use up to 15 per cent extra energy of the battery compared to less accurate solutions while maintaining all safety requirements.
The accuracy is achieved using Atmel’s patented method for calibrating the voltage reference in conjunction with high resolution Delta Sigma Analog to Digital converters for voltage measurement.
The family consists of six devices targeting different end markets. The ATmega4HVD and ATmega8HVD target the low-end consumer market requiring protection and authentication. For applications requiring gas gauge, the ATmega8HVA and ATmega16HVA are the ideal products, while the ATmega16HVB and ATmega32HVB targets the notebook battery market.
All parts are single chip battery side solutions incorporating a protection with high-side N-channel FET drivers.
Amtel
